[Announcement] Avalon ASIC Development Status [Batch #1]

[punin]

Thank you gmaxwell for cleaning this thread up.

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[BitSyncom]

So I've been neglecting emails a bit mostly because I am on the road and there has been tons of people recently asking when the second batch will be on sale, mixed with actual support problems I am sorting through, so I apologize in advance for any emails that should've been replied to but have yet to hear from. There's no doubt that crunch time is now and everyone inolved with Avalon is currently extremely busy. I will do my best to answer as much email as possible, once I am stationary on the 10th I suspect only then I'll be able to catch up.

Here's some notes:
1. please stop asking when Avalon will be available again for purchase, we will make an announcement when that happens.

2. We've mentioned before we will try to ship as much as possible before CNY, just exactly how many we can ship out can only be revealed when we start shipping and making estimates based on workflow. There will be another update regarding this matter once shipping starts, we at Avalon currently do not have the answer to this question unfortunately.

3. It is extremely important for our existing customer to verify that your Order's Address, Name and such shipping information is correct. In addition if your Order is still not marketed as "Completed" on our site please get in touch with me immediately, failure to do this will delay your shipping.

4. Regarding openWRT image, this is still a working progress, but I suspect in the next few days it will be ready, regardless it will and it have to be released before the actual product ships, so it is only a matter of time.

5. there's currently no problem that can cause change in delivery date, everything else is on schedule.

[spiccioli]

3. It is extremely important for our existing customer to verify that your Order's Address, Name and such shipping information is correct. In addition if your Order is still not marketed as "Completed" on our site please get in touch with me immediately, failure to do this will delay your shipping.

Hi BitSyncom,

My order is listed as "Order #200000nnn - Bitcoin Payment Completed", so I take it as it is "Completed" for you, am I right?

Thanks

spiccioli.

[BitSyncom]

Correct, if your order status does not include the word Completed in it, you should get in touch with me ASAP.

[Baphomet]

Thanks for the update. Hopefully getting in on the second wave of orders isn't just going to be luck of being online at the right time but i can't imagine many other ways to do it.
Compared to all the other ASIC producers Avalon seem far more organised and transparent/honest with information and customer relations and it makes me want to spend my money here rather than anywhere else.

[Dhomochevsky]

I wanted to ask how can I get you guys to ship my order using EMS Expedited instead of DHL. I used DHL for some imports from China last fall and I got into all sorts of problems at customs because of them. EMS worked just fine for me back when I ordered my Icarus boards from Zhang, and they took about a week - a week and a half to arrive. I also had some questions regarding invoices. Do I need to send you a mail at the address I received updates from? Or is there some other I should use?

[Vicus]

I wanted to ask how can I get you guys to ship my order using EMS Expedited instead of DHL. I used DHL for some imports from China last fall and I got into all sorts of problems at customs because of them. EMS worked just fine for me back when I ordered my Icarus boards from Zhang, and they took about a week - a week and a half to arrive. I also had some questions regarding invoices. Do I need to send you a mail at the address I received updates from? Or is there some other I should use?

Yes, very good question. Shipment date is near and we need to make a choice.

[thorvald]

I have a question regarding the value submitted to customs .
Can you submit a different value than the payed value ?
I have to pay over 35% in vat+tax.
Regards
Thorvald

[BitSyncom]

I wanted to ask how can I get you guys to ship my order using EMS Expedited instead of DHL. I used DHL for some imports from China last fall and I got into all sorts of problems at customs because of them. EMS worked just fine for me back when I ordered my Icarus boards from Zhang, and they took about a week - a week and a half to arrive. I also had some questions regarding invoices. Do I need to send you a mail at the address I received updates from? Or is there some other I should use?

I've updated the thread to reflect that DHL and EMS are choices, as it stands the unit is more heavy than what we originally expected because we want to built a nice solid product, due to it's size, DHL is in fact cheaper than EMS at this moment. In the next few days, I expect to sent out a News Letter with a form which allow the users to pick their Carrier of Choice, currently all Orders are defaulted to DHL.

I understand invoicing will be an issue, we are still speaking with some companies in HK/Shenzhen that specialize in  exporting products from china to selected countries, I believe they will be handling the product invoices, the news letter will also address this issue.

[loshia]

About Invoicing...
The best option will be to name AVALON as "Computer Configuration" in the invoice

1. There are no additional taxes involved in my country when importing computers except VAT which can not be avoided
2. There will be no issues because it is crypto equipment named like "ordinary PC" and no additional customs check will be applied if it is double purpose or not. When speaking of Cryptography Import/Export rules, they are very strict in my country (and all over EU) and it may happen that some of the EU customers will not be able to get the unit at all from the customs
What about it BitSyncom?
Anyone to have something against naming our units as "Computer Configuration"? If we all agree on that it will be eraser for BitSyncom to handle invoices because all of them will be same for "Computer Configuration"?

[Aseras]

I think that since it's the first batch, they should all be sent out as engineering sample or demo units.

[greyhawk]

Yes, please try to circumvent customs duties. This is going to end well.

[loshia]

I think that since it's the first batch, they should all be sent out as engineering sample or demo units.

Dude,
If they can send them as demo units this mean no VAT:) But custom officers are very suspicious in my country so i personally prefer to pay 20% VAT on top just to be on a safe side.

[ewibit]

About Invoicing...
The best option will be to name AVALON as "Computer Configuration" in the invoice

1. There are no additional taxes involved in my country when importing computers except VAT which can not be avoided
2. There will be no issues because it is crypto equipment named like "ordinary PC" and no additional customs check will be applied if it is double purpose or not. When speaking of Cryptography Import/Export rules, they are very strict in my country (and all over EU) and it may happen that some of the EU customers will not be able to get the unit at all from the customs
What about it BitSyncom?
Anyone to have something against naming our units as "Computer Configuration"? If we all agree on that it will be eraser for BitSyncom to handle invoices because all of them will be same for "Computer Configuration"?

this is a good idea to declare it as a computer
and what is the best choice for shipping? (DHL or EMS or another for prices, customs check and shipping time) for EU (D, A,...etc.)
TIA

[spiccioli]

In the next few days, I expect to sent out a News Letter with a form which allow the users to pick their Carrier of Choice, currently all Orders are defaulted to DHL.

BitSyncom,

I've never received a mail from you (previous updates) even if inside store.avalon-asic.com my email address is correctly spelled.

Is there some other place where you're taking email addresses from?

spiccioli

[Tinua]

If it is not marked as an engineering sample or demo, you can have great problems on custom because of the missing CE mark!
Or i'm wrong?

[SolarSilver]

I have a question regarding the value submitted to customs .
Can you submit a different value than the payed value ?

Please don't do this, it will only create problems with customs and it will delay your order while they sort out the real price.

I had 4 packages stuck for over 6 weeks because the listed prices were wholesale and customs argued it undercut the official listed prices on the website (end-user prices).

Trying to ship items as samples or gifts will only attract unwanted attention, and at this point I'd prefer things to breeze through customs instead of getting them after March....

Anyways, this has been addressed in this thread before

[Raize]

I think the reason why everyone is emailing you directly asking about preorders for the second batch is because several of us signed up for the email notifications and did not get notified when the preorders for the first batch went online. I didn't care about this for my own sake, because I was planning on waiting for a far future batch to get involved, but I have a very upset client that very much wanted at least one of the first batch ASICs for me to mine for him. I can assure you, the second batch is going to sell out in less than 15 minutes if you just "go online" with it, even if the quantities are in the thousands, because your company appears to be the first to market.

Yifu, I implore you to get an honest estimate of the demand for the product from the community for a second batch when you are comfortably ready to tackle this, because you guys are going to need to be able to scale your production very quickly. I can assure you that 300 units isn't going to be anywhere near enough. It doesn't have to be an estimate of "guaranteed preorders", but you should be getting the email & phone number (SMS) of anyone interested in ordering for the second batch, and an estimate of how many products they would like. Then you can determine how big your next batch should be, and open up the actual preordering and send emails and text notifications accordingly. You should also lower the price slowly instead of quickly, but that might be a discussion for another time, you can hire staff to tell you how to best do this shortly.

At the very least I'd recommend committing to the same price till you have a batch order that comes in at a smaller size than the previous order. Some of us will be waiting for future batches or buying ASIC miners secondhand after the enormous price spike and bubble burst that is likely to happen because of this, but the one thing you want to do is to always meet expectations, let people make their own financial mistakes themselves.

I honestly think this is going to be the equivalent of a gold rush, so your best move is to assist the fools in their demise. The Bitcoin network will get stronger because of it, either way.

[ewibit]

If it is not marked as an engineering sample or demo, you can have great problems on custom because of the missing CE mark!
Or i'm wrong?

there have been a few people in EU that have still bought FPGA's from this company. How have these done this? Perhaps they should share their experiences with this deals (shipping, custom, invoice etc.)...

[PuertoLibre]

About Invoicing...
The best option will be to name AVALON as "Computer Configuration" in the invoice

1. There are no additional taxes involved in my country when importing computers except VAT which can not be avoided
2. There will be no issues because it is crypto equipment named like "ordinary PC" and no additional customs check will be applied if it is double purpose or not. When speaking of Cryptography Import/Export rules, they are very strict in my country (and all over EU) and it may happen that some of the EU customers will not be able to get the unit at all from the customs
What about it BitSyncom?
Anyone to have something against naming our units as "Computer Configuration"? If we all agree on that it will be eraser for BitSyncom to handle invoices because all of them will be same for "Computer Configuration"?

I highly recommend you all make these suggestions (on importation declarations) in private and away from BFL's prying eyes.

Unless you want possible trouble.